15th LS-DYNA International Conference & Users Meeting

Every year, Predictive Engineering attends an LS-DYNA Conference, this year it was in Dearborn, MI and next year, it’ll be in Koblenz, Germany. The technical sessions covered a broad range of topics from "How To's" to new numerical algorithms to validation work between experimentalists and theoreticians. For me personally, these were the three stand-out talks:

(i) Modeling & Simulation Challenges at the Interface between Man and Machine: Medical Devices by Dr. M. Palmer
(ii) Modeling of a Cross-Ply Thermoplastic for Thermoforming of Composite Sheets in LS-DYNA by K. White and
(iii) An Enhance Assumed Strain (EAS) Solid Element for Nonlinear Implicit Analysis by T. Borrvall.

The first paper was by Medtronic and the background gossip is that they are moving away from other commercial solvers to focus on just LS-DYNA due to its multi-physics capabilities and especially its strong nonlinear implicit performance. The second paper was a stunner and showed how thermoplastics can easily reach their glass transition temperature under moderate strain rates. In essence, whenever composites are simulated under dynamic environments, one should consider temperature effects on the resin and how it will lower its elasticity. The third paper was just plain fun mechanics and how LS-DYNA is continually expanding its capabilities in the implicit arena.

Team members also attended short courses after the Conference on Implicit Analysis, LS-Opt (optimization) and Material Failure Modeling. As usual, a big part of the Conference was the social aspects and every night there was some sort of dinner party with our colleagues from around the world. If you are interested in LS-DYNA or a current user, we would heartily recommend attending these Conferences. If you come to Koblenz, please visit our booth and get your ticket for the dinner cruise on the Mosel.